I am pretty confident in concluding that everyone who reads this article would like to go to Heaven when they die. Furthermore, I am confident that everyone reading this article *expects* God to take them to Heaven when they die.
Certainly, God loves you and desires your salvation. Even if you are, at this moment, steeped in sin, still, “God desires none to perish, but that all would come to repentance” (2Peter 3:9). John writes that even while the entire world was condemned, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him SHOULD not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Paul writes, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
However, in spite of God’s overwhelming love for us, He still had to send Jesus to the Cross in order that we might be saved. That is, God’s love and desire for our salvation could not void the necessity of the Cross, that the way of salvation become accessible.
The reason I am emphasizing this is because I think that sometimes we depend too much on God’s love “alone” to save us! Don’t we have the tendency to believe that even though we hang on to our private and pet sins — even though we don’t pay much attention to worship, Bible study, or the church in general, that God is going to save us anyway just because He “loves” us so much? It doesn’t seem to enter our mind that we must love Him in return. Genuine love is always reciprocated. A reciprocating love is necessary in developing any relationship, and especially true in developing a relationship with God (cf. 1John 4:19). Since “God is love” (1Jn 4:16), this had to be one of the motivating factors in God creating man in the first place; so He would have someone on which to pour out His love and who could also return love.
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If we do not return God’s love toward us, then love is incomplete and no relationship develops. How do we “return” the love that God first demonstrated toward us at the Cross? Well, in His grace, God has created a “system” whereby we can prove our love toward Him. The system is called, “Christianity,” and it is my conviction that it is impossible to live the Christian life unless one truly and genuinely loves God with all his heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37). The Christian life is one that is characterized by obedience to God’s word. It is *impossible* to separate love from willing obedience. Consider: “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments.” (2John 6). “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1John 5:3). “Whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him” (1John 2:5). “He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1John 2:4).
Certainly, God loves you, but that doesn’t mean you are saved. You must hear and believe His word with enough love and conviction to obey it. Jesus, while in the flesh, had to become obedient to the Heavenly Father even to the point of death on the Cross (Phil. 2:8). God does not demand any less from us (Luke 14:26-27).
–Toby Miller
